


unity of time: april 27th, 2020

by fallforjoy



Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Always a Different Sex, Canonical Character Death, Don't Like Don't Read, F/F, Grief/Mourning, Jason Todd-centric, Judaism, Unreliable Narrator, brief instance of a very depressing fridge, brief instance of very depressing m-rated spiciness, lesbian Jason Todd, minor use of ableist language, very extremely unreliable narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-10
Updated: 2020-05-10
Packaged: 2021-03-03 05:47:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24099838
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fallforjoy/pseuds/fallforjoy
Summary: In Arestolean philosophy of theatre, the ideal time which the fable of a tragedy encompasses is one period of the sun.Or, how to spend the anniversary of your own death.
Relationships: Dick Grayson & Jason Todd, Roy Harper/Jason Todd
Comments: 9
Kudos: 40





	unity of time: april 27th, 2020

**Author's Note:**

> [recommended listening](https://youtu.be/Bnapk6nxuWo)
> 
> Guess who's coming out of hiding to post something for the first time in (checks notes) 6 years! It couldn't be me, could it!
> 
> I was planning on getting this out a few days after the anniversary of Jason Todd's death, but my life thoroughly blew up so that plan was extremely jettisoned. So instead it's in honor of the end of Lobdell's occupation of the IP, I guess. Also just fyi the mix of canons here is kind of bananas and if you need anything clarified I will absolutely do that.
> 
> This work contains a lot of discussion of grief that is not very well handled, and if you find that triggering please keep those elements in mind. Just in general: **HEED THE TAGS**

“So, do you have any plans for tomorrow?” Babs asks from her perch behind the computer, not bothering to look at Jordan, who has just returned from changing out of her goo-covered uniform. She doesn’t want to think too hard about the provenance of said goo; leave it to little siblings to get into sticky situations.

The clock on the wall above the computer bank reads 12:15am Eastern Standard Time. Jordan shakes out a lavender sweatshirt – must be something Stephanie left here, though she doesn’t know why Babs assumed they’d be the same size – and asks, “Today tomorrow or one night from now tomorrow?”

Barbara pivots in her chair. “Today tomorrow,” she says, like it’s obvious. In Barbara’s defense, it is obvious.

Pulling the sweatshirt over her head, Jordan says, “Nope. I have some errands to run, things I’ve been putting off. Dodge Bruce’s calls, as usual. Other than that, nothing, no special plans.”

“Want to grab dinner, or... something?” Babs asks carefully.

Jordan can usually tell when people are asking her things out of obligation, but Babs has always been a hard read. Maybe it’s because Babs had written Jay off as a lost cause before her death had even been a twinkle in the Joker’s eye, and she couldn’t imagine how satisfying being right about that had been. Maybe it’s because for about seven years Jordan was ceaselessly trying to kill her friends. Maybe it’s because she and Barbara, out of misplaced guilt, made a scene at Dick’s funeral. Maybe they just don’t like each other very much – that was a distinct possibility; not everyone had to like each other.

(Maybe, and this is probably the most likely and therefore the one Jordan likes to think about the least, maybe it’s because out of everyone,  _ everyone _ , in their erstwhile little ‘family’, Barbara is the one who should have gotten it, and she didn’t, she didn’t even  _ try _ , and that more than anything made Jordan want to scream whenever they were in the same room together. It sits over Barbara, a patina of things unsaid, and Jordan doesn’t have the time or energy to deal with it. Especially not today.)

Whatever Barbara’s motives are, Jordan smirks a little, scoffs out a laugh and says, “No.”

Barbara huffs, which is good because Jordan knows how to deal with an irritated Babs. She spins back to her computer and says, “You know tomorrow’s not entirely about you.”

“Oh, I am aware of that,” Jordan says, pulling her combat boots (miracuously almost completely goo-free) on, not bothering to lace them completely, “but it is mostly about me.”

Barbara huffs. “Even Damian makes a point to talk to–”

“I’m not Damian,” Jordan says, cold to her own ears, and traipses her way back to Barbara’s bathroom.

Barbara has a decently stocked medicine cabinet for all that everything in it is on the bottom two shelves – reachable from the chair, Jordan assumes – and it’s easy enough to find what she’s looking for. She’s taken two pills, swallowing water straight from the tap and hoping that the Clocktower has a filtration system, when Barbara yells back to ask, “What are you taking?”

“Relax, Barbie, I don’t have any interest in your stash. It’s Advil,” Jordan pokes her head out of the bathroom and asks, “Say, you don’t happen to have a tampon around here, would you?”

Barbara turns toward her and cringes in sympathy. “Cramps?”

“Headache.”

“Sure. There’s a box in the bottom drawer.”

“Thanks,” Jordan says, ducking down to pull out the box, “This sweatshirt is Stephanie’s, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Why’d you think it’d fit me? I mean it does, but she’s like 4 sizes smaller than me.”

“It’s big on purpose, for sleepovers. Make sure you bring it back!”

“Sure thing, Babs,” Jordan says, then closes the door. 

Forty five seconds later Jordan is opening the bathroom door again, trash stowed and tampon in. She’s making her way to the elevator when Barbara starts, “I just want you to know...”

Jordan turns around, just before the elevator bank. “Just want me to know what?”

Barbara levels her with a look, softer than normal. It’s almost pity, which makes Jordan want to tear her skin off. “You don’t have to be alone tomorrow, if you don’t want to be.”

Just what the fuck is Jordan supposed to do with that kind of sincerity?

“Thanks for the sweatshirt,” Jordan says, pushing the button for the elevator.

Baraba looks away. “Yeah,” she replies, almost to herself.

“I just,” Jordan says, staring at the elevator bank. “I don’t know to not be by myself, today.”

Barbara nods. The elevator dings. “I’ll send your uniform back to your base, the warehouse on 157th,” she says.

“Okay,” Jordan responds.

The doors close.

* * *

Jordan wakes up later than normal, around 8:30. She got a solid 6 hours of sleep, better than usual for her, and managed to not have nightmares, which is just good luck. She wasn’t lying when she told Barbara that she doesn’t have any special plans for the day, so she just stares at her ceiling for a while. She checks her phone (no notifications), scrolls through the twitter she maintains just to see posts of cute animals and literature memes (no notifications), checks her email (how did she get on so many chain lists?). She lays back down again.

She considers trying to get off, but after a few minutes of absolutely no erotic fluttering she gives up. Her go-to imaginings these days are of the time Rose had spent 45 minutes leaving marks on her thighs and belly, hands smooth like leather but for her clever archer’s callouses, head bent and hair soft between Jordan’s fingers. When Jordan closes her eyes, she can still almost feel the soft bruise on the inside of her left knee, shaped like Rose’s mouth, and the sweet ache that came with it. Rose had taken her time, told Jordan how much she loved her thighs, how much she loved her whole body really, got her as ready as she’d ever been, before leaning up and starting in on Jordan’s cunt. It had been going-away sex.

Those bruises lasted longer than Rose did, in the end.

Jordan is left with an ethical quandary: is it okay to fantasize about someone she had been in love with, who had not been in love with her, who she fucked around with less than half a dozen times, and who is now dead? Usually she’s got the fading endorphins and a pleasant adrenaline buzz while she contemplates this problem. Today she just feels like she’s about to cry.

Jordan gets out of bed. If she’s going to cry about anything today, it’s not going to be Rose.

She chooses not to think about Rose while she’s washing her hands, paying special attention to scrubbing away the old blood stuck in her cuticles. She doesn’t think of Rose while she washes her face, or rubs some of the industrial style moisturizer she uses for everything into her skin. She can’t help but think about Rose when she looks at herself in the mirror after brushing her teeth; one morning, Rose came into the bathroom, put her hands on Jordan’s waist, pulled her in. Rose’s arms were heavy. That morning Jordan had to close her eyes against the tingling feeling that spread out over her whole body, toes, collar bones, palms of her hands, center of her stomach. Rose had mumbled a good morning into Jordan’s neck and she felt so  _ warm _ . Rose had asked her to wear her hair down that day. This morning, mouth clear of toothpaste foam, Jordan puts her hair into a french braid and pins it into a bun.

Jordan dresses quickly; jeans, thick socks, her one comfortable bra. It’s supposed to be unseasonably cool (though not rainy) today, so she layers a tank top under a thick sweater. She eats a plain yogurt cup for the protein and decides, since she’s going to the methadone clinic anyway, she might as well get a decent cup of coffee at the counter in that neck of the woods, so she laces up her boots and heads south towards downtown.

Rose had never used a methadone clinic that Jordan had been aware of, though it might have been helpful at certain points in her life. Even so, Oliver was (and, presumably, still is) a real sanctimonious piece of shit about this and every other type of addiction treatment that isn’t will-powered cold turkey, so after Jordan gets her coffee she relishes walking into the clinic and saying to the intake nurse, “Hey, can I make a donation in someone else’s name?”

“Sure,” the nurse, a woman in her 40s with greying dark hair, says, eyeing Jordan warily. She’s stationed behind a piece of glass that Jordan knows from experience wouldn’t do much if someone in withdrawals came in looking for a fix. “What amount?”

“Two thousand dollars,” Jordan says, grateful that the waiting room is empty. It’s not like she couldn’t take any random junkie in a fight, but getting mugged is not something she particularly wants to deal with today.

Still, the amount makes the nurse look even more wary of her. “That’s very generous,” she says, and Jordan decides that she likes this woman.

“My, uh,” Jordan starts, pulling her checkbook out of the inside pocket of her motorcycle jacket and generally not making eye contact with the nurse, “my friend died recently. She was an addict. I was the main beneficiary of her estate and I,” Jordan looks up, sucks in a breath, blinks a few times, “I guess I figured that she’d want some of it to go to a good cause.”

Jordan must sound a lot more miserable than she thought she did, because the nurse takes this as a good enough reason to not think a methadone clinic being offered 2 large out of the blue from a random isn’t sketchy as shit. In any case, it makes the nurse soften and nod a bit. “Did she OD?” she asks, “I don’t mean to be rude, but is that how she died?”

Jordan huffs out a laugh. “I like your bluntness, it’s a breath of fresh air. And no, she was,” Jordan pauses for a second, and then decides on the truth, “she was in rehab, and the rehab center exploded.”

“Oh my god,” the nurse says, hand over her mouth.

“Yeah,” Jordan says.

“God, that’s...”

“It’s just really bad luck,” Jordan says, and sniffs some of the wetness out of her nose. “It’s just really pure bad luck.”

“Yeah, I guess,” the nurse says. “Do you want to be on our mailing list for future donations?”

“I would not,” Jordan says, hesitating for a moment over the memo line before writing ‘In memory of Rose Harper’. She tears the check off and hands it to the nurse.

“Do you want a receipt? For your taxes?”

“Nah,” Jordan says, tucking her checkbook back away, “but thanks. Have a good one.”

Jordan’s out the door before she can hear if the nurse responds or not.

* * *

When she was still, well, before she died, Bruce had done this thing where he sent flowers to her mother’s grave every year on Catalina’s birthday. At first it had pissed Jordan off to high heaven (he hadn’t even  _ known _ Jordan’s mother, who was he to be sending her flowers?), not that she bothered to tell him that, but eventually she just stopped caring. Bruce was going to do what he was going to do, and at least this was somewhat well intentioned. In terms of tribute it was fairly harmless, even if it was a tribute to a woman he didn’t know enough about to know that flowers weren’t really appropriate. And it wasn’t like they ever talked about it. If it had been up to Jordan, she wouldn’t have ever visited her mother’s grave, but every year on April 27th Alfred found that the way home from Gotham Academy that wound past the cemetary was faster, and asked if she’d like to make a stop. In his infinite magnanimity, Alfred always let her have the moment alone. After the first two years, Jordan started making a point to find the coolest rock she could during the day to take with her, and did her best to ignore the flowers.

As she rides from the methadone clinic to the cemetery, she wonders if Bruce kept up the tradition after her mother’s birthday also became the anniversary of her own death, and Jordan decides she wouldn’t be surprised either way. Still, she has to keep herself from rolling her eyes so hard they get stuck when she sees the bouquet of lilies and white gerber daisies on Catalina’s grave. Jordan rolls the stone she brought, dark grey and about the size of a sand dollar, in her fingers, as she regards the headstone. ‘Catherine O. Todd / Beloved Mother / May she rest in the peace she could not find on earth’ and her birth and death dates.

Not for the first time, Jordan feels every emotion in her body leech out like an arterial bleed when she reads those words. Bruce put this monument together, knowing that Jordan would see it,  _ wanting _ Jordan to see it. She was not involved in the ordering or preparation of this tombstone, and wouldn’t have been even if Bruce had not involved himself; her mother was buried as a charity case months before Jordan stole the tires off the Batmobile.

Jordan stands at the foot of her mother’s grave for a whole fifteen minutes, contemplating, feeling her own eyebrows pinch together. For a long time Jordan wondered how things would have gone if her mother hadn’t— if she’d lived. If she’d never gotten sick in the first place. How they would have lived, where Jordan herself would have ended up. If her mother would have ever been happy. If her father would have ever shown back up.

Jordan misses her mother. Of course she misses her mother, she misses her mother actively. The day before her mother had died, she pushed Jordan’s hair back off her forehead and kissed her twice on her face, the way she had a thousand times before, once on her temple and once next to her eye. Jordan can’t remember if Catalina’s lips had been soft or chapped; Catalina had been so sick that Jordan thinks they must have been chapped, but in her memory they were soft. She remembers her mother’s hands, how they had always been cool, and Jordan could tell if it was a good week or a bad week depending on if Catalina’s nails had been taken care of. She misses how she would have done anything for her mother, and knowing —  _ knowing _ — that her mother would have done anything for her.

Jordan wonders what it would have been like if Rose could have met Catalina. If they would have gotten along. Hell, if her mother would have even approved of how much— how she— how Rose and Jordan were with each other. If that was a part of Jordan her mother could have accepted. For a while Jordan wondered if that was the price, if how happy she had been so briefly with Rose was meant to be her reward for how shitty things had been. If Jordan were even marginally more superstitious that thought, that she would have done it all again for those few weeks with Rose where everything was right, would have felt like prophecy, like hubris.

This way lies madness. Jordan has long since stopped trying to beat fate. Chances are no matter how things had gone down Jordan would have gotten where she did: six feet under in an early grave, this time without the resurrection about which she is still firmly ambivalent. Chances are Rose, and her mother, and her father, all would have ended where they did, brief reprieve or no.

Finally, she pulls the stone from her pocket and, taking extra care not to step on where her mother’s body likely lays, places it gently on the headstone with her left hand, and turns, and leaves. She takes the flowers with her, and drives up to the small building where the cemetery office resides. Maybe today is going to be about honoring her dead. Yeah. That’s doable.

The office is overly warm and dead quiet when Jordan opens the door, but as soon as she closes the door a young man who seemed to have been mostly asleep at the desk startles enough that he nearly falls off his chair.

“Hi! Hello,” he says, and Jordan almost smiles at the display, “Hi. I’m Andrew. How can I help you?”

Jordan looks down at her shoes. “Um,” she starts, “so, my mother is in your graveyard.”

“Lots of people are,” Andrew says.

Jordan smiles wanly. “I know. Thing is, my mother is, was, Jewish. We’re Jewish. And she’s not buried in the Jewish section of this cemetery, and I’m wondering if it would be possible to,” Jordan gestures a little, “move her.”

“Ah,” Andrew says, “This cemetery doesn’t have a Jewish section.”

“Okay,” Jordan says, “is there one in Gotham that does?”

“I don’t know. But! I can give you the business card of the Rabbi at Congregation Beth Shalom, and they might be able to help you out,” Andrew says, digging around in the desk for a minute before coming up with a bent business card. “I think that’s current.”

“Thanks,” Jordan says wryly, reading the card. Apparently the Rabbi is named Yakov Shapiro. “Um, these are for you,” Jordan says, putting the flowers on the desk.

“Does your... mother... not want them?” Andrew asks, eyes wide.

“They’re from someone who didn’t know her,” Jordan says, “and she hated lilies.”

“O...kay,” Andrew says, then follows up with an anachronistically cheery, “Have a nice day!” as Jordan leaves.

She doesn’t go far, just to a small bench next to where she parked her bike, and pulls out her phone. Three missed calls (one from Bruce, two from Dick), no voicemails, a text from Kori ( Hope u r doing well today !  💜🧡  ) and from Duke ( Still need me to take your route tonight? ) and a handful of news alerts. She responds to Kori ( thanks for checking in, i’m fine, considering ) and Duke ( yes, thanks for picking it up ) and swipes away the call notifications so she can type in the number on the business card.

“Congregation Beth Shalom of Gotham, Rivka speaking,” a harried woman with a nutty voice answers after a ring and a half.

Jordan doesn’t say anything, surprised at how quickly the phone was answered.

“Hello?”

“Hi, yes, sorry,” Jordan said, squeezing her eyes shut, “I’m hoping to speak with Rabbi Shapiro?”

“With regards to?”

“Um, my mother’s burial,” Jordan answered

“Of course. The Rabbi will be doing house calls all afternoon, and I can add you to the schedule. What’s your address?”

Jordan can’t stop tapping her thumb and middle finger together. “I’m not, I don’t, I don’t know if the Rabbi should be coming to my home.”

“Are you not sitting shiva?” Rivka asks.

“No, she died, um, my mother died several years ago,” now her leg is moving too, she needs out of this conversation, “I’m wondering if it would be possible to have her, um, moved.”

“Are you Jewish?”

“Yeah,” Jordan clears her throat, “yes.”

“Then you should already know that reinterment is typically not permitted.”

Jordan blows out a breath and squeezes her eyes shut. “It’s just that she was buried in a gentile cemetery,” she says, “I guess I want to know, what um, what my options are. For her.”

Rivka takes a moment, and when she speaks again her voice is much gentler. “Of course. That’s quite understandable. Would you be able to come in to see the Rabbi on Wednesday? Perhaps around 2:00?”

Jordan bites her lip and nods, then says, “Yes, I should be able to make that.” Her voice cracks on the last word.

“Excellent,” Rivka says, “Can I get your name?”

“Jordan Todd. Jordan Esther Todd, actually.”

“And your mother’s name?”

Jordan sniffs, long. “Her married name was Catherine Todd, but I’m pretty sure she was born Catalina Mara Oliveira. That’s Olive like the food-I-R-A.”

Rivka hums and says, “Alright, Miss Todd, we’ll see you on Wednesday.”

“Yes, at 2, thank you,” Jordan says, and hangs up. She was abrupt on the phone but as soon as the call is done she starts breathing heavily, and puts her elbows against her knees. She takes deep, fast breaths and blinks a lot. She could cry, but she has to drive home and suddenly she doesn’t want to be stuck in this cemetery for one more minute. Not one.

So she gets on her bike, and she rides.

* * *

Jordan needs to wash her hair.

She realizes this as she stands in the aisle at a grocery store, sans list, staring down the shampoo section. She doesn’t normally get her shampoo from the grocery store; it’s too curly for that, and her hair is the one thing she always makes a point to get good products for, no matter what. It gets frizzy if she doesn’t baby it. Even so, just looking at the shampoo aisle makes her scalp itch under the weight of oil, the residue of sweat. It gets dirty under the hood, and air filter or not the steam in that thing can be murder. Still, she doesn’t like to wash it more than twice a week, and it’s only been two days since her last shower.

Fuck it. It’s been a hard day, and it’s barely 2:00. She picks up a bottle of dry shampoo for dark hair and goes to the register, where she also buys a pack of Marlboros.

At the beginning of the day she didn’t think she’d be spraying her head down with dry shampoo in an ACME bathroom. It smells awful.

While she’s waiting for the shampoo to sink in, her phone buzzes. It’s Dick. If it’s important he’ll leave a message. Jordan turns the screen off and goes back to looking at her feet. Once a couple of minutes have passed, according to the clock on the wall in the bathroom, she starts rubbing the shampoo into her hair. It feels tacky, and powdery, and it doesn’t sit well on the white fringe in her bangs, but it still feels better than it had before, and the sensation has her letting out a breath she didn’t know she was holding. 

When it’s wet, or when she bothers to straighten it properly, her hair reaches the small of her back. Normally, it barely clears her shoulder blades. The shortest it had ever been was right after Dick ‘died’. She went to the wake, briefly, and left feeling so much worse that when she got home she cut her hair down to the messy pixie she’d had it in during her messy first few months as Robin. It wasn’t exactly to honor him; he hadn’t even known her when her hair was that short. Still, it was something different, and when she looked in the mirror and barely recognized herself it had felt better. But her hair grows fast, a little more than an inch a month, and Dick was back before all of the length she’d lost was. At the time it still felt– right, though. Fitting.

This afternoon Jordan decides not to do the full french braid, going just for a standard one, loose enough that she knows from experience in approximately ten seconds it’ll start to dissolve into waves around her face, but she likes the way it looks. So she does it, almost whimpering at the sensation of her fingers against her scalp, and then leaves the bathroom.

She’s leaning against her bike, face turned into the sun like a flower, fully intending to savor the first cigarette she’s had in awhile when she notices Tim behind her. Sighing, she takes a long drag on the cigarette and holds it in her lungs for a second before letting it out and ashing the remainder (most of the cigarette) under her boot heel.

“Don’t put it out on my account,” Tim says wryly, standing a few feet away.

Just to throw him off his game Jordan decides to be honest. “You already have a compromised immune system, you don’t need second hand smoke too.”

Tim blinks at her.

“What’s up Timothy?” she asks, leaning more against her bike and crossing an ankle over her knee.

“You weren’t answering anyone’s calls,” he says, “I was volunteered to find you.”

Jordan looks at her phone. Two missed calls and accompanying voicemails from Alfred, a handful more calls and a voicemail from Dick, another missed call from Bruce, a missed call from Barbara. “Shit,” Jordan mutters.

When she glances back at Tim, he’s got a half smile on his face, and lifts his eyebrows as if to say ‘what can you do?’ With his mouth he asks, “You good?”

“I’m fine. You don’t have to worry,” Jordan says, glancing at her phone again before locking it and stowing it away, “I’ve just had a busy morning.”

“Anything interesting?” he asks, trying and failing to seem like he’s interested for any other reason than his own self preservation. It’s fair enough, Jordan supposes. When she’s busy, things around Tim tend to explode.

“Not really. Errands. Boring shit, stuff that needed to get done,” she says, “Really nothing that has anything to do with you.”

Tim hums. He comes over to lean against her bike too, and Jordan is taken aback by the sheer audacity of the movement. “You gonna call them back?” he asks, glancing to where she’s tucked the phone away.

“Eventually. Not right this second.”

“They get antsy about you,” Tim says, “especially today. You should call someone.”

Jordan says, “I will. Just not right now. I get antsy today, too.”

Tim nods. “Well, just wanted to check in,” he says, patting his hands against his own skinny thighs, “So, I’ll be––”

On a whim, Jordan asks, “Wanna get lunch?”

“What?”

“The midday meal, Timmy.”

“I know what lunch is, but– what?”

“I’m hungry, and I would like your company while I alleviate that hunger. I’ll even pay.”

“Sure?” Tim says.

“Great. Hop on,” Jordan says, untangling herself to sit on the bike. She hands Tim the helmet, figuring that’s probably on the low end of the ladder of illegal things she’ll do today, and everyone (including her) is very committed to maintaining the integrity of Tim’s cranium. Jordan tries not to think too hard about the fact that Tim presses himself into her back with no hesitation, no distrust. Maybe it’s because she’s the one with her soft center at risk under his hands, but it feels like they’ve crossed a border. Tim holds onto the motorcycle and her with his arms and thighs and it feels like forgiveness. Jordan can’t think about it too hard. So she puts on sunglasses and starts the bike, and says “I think you’ll like the coffee at this place,” before they zoom off into the lovely spring day.

45 minutes later the two of them are sitting across from each other at one of Jordan's favorite restaurants, a little Cuban place in Otisburg, and Jordan is already feeling a little full with just after half her food eaten.

Tim, on the other hand, looks gobsmacked. “This is very delicious,” he says, looking into his now empty coffee cup with incredulity.

“Hmm,” Jordan smiles, “and the food is good too.”

“I was including the food,” Tim snaps, and continues looking into the cup with regret.

He must have been including the food. In front of him in the remnants of a pan con lechon lay demolished on a white plate with green edging, fries similarly gone. The restaurant wasn’t large, though mirrors in red-painted window panes along the walls gave it some extra dimension. Mostly it was comfortable, with warm yellow light giving the place a welcoming feel, even for a grey east coast afternoon. Cafe Ricardo was a family run place, though they’d gotten busier and hired outside in recent years, and it was named for the grandfather who had moved from Cuba to Gotham in the mid-60s. The place always made Jordan feel nostalgic, for all that she’d never been to Cuba.

Tim is glancing longingly at Jordan’s half finished coffee, and at her remaining fried plantains, so Jordan calls out, “Aye Luisa, otro cafe por favor.”

Luisa, in the kitchen, responds with a, “Si, un minuto!” and Jordan goes back to looking at Tim.

“How’d you find this place?” Tim asks.

Jordan shrugs. “One of the sons got into some trouble a couple years back,” she says, “I helped him out of it. Jaime, is his name. He’s a good kid, just started college, I think he’s gonna end up in med school. Anyway, the food is so good that I just never stopped coming.”

Tim raises his eyebrows, and Jordan can tell that he wants to ask about what kind of trouble Jaime got himself into, but clearly the better part of valor wins out so he just says, “Well, thanks for bringing me.”

Luisa comes out with Tim’s coffee and Jordan takes a sip of her own. The conversation so far has been stop and go, so Jordan decides to offer up some information. “I’ve been thinking about going in on a place like this,” she says, “one of the chefs is like me, he’s a Cuban Jew and wants to start a kosher Carribean restaurant down towards the City Hall district and I might invest in it.”

“You’re Jewish?” Tim asks.

“Yeah?” Jordan says.

“I don’t think I ever knew that.”

“I don’t think I ever told you,” Jordan takes one of the last bites of her steak sandwich and washes it down with a sip of creamy coffee. “Obviously I’m not that observant.”

“For some reason I thought your family was Catholic,” Tim says.

“Yeah, well, Willis was,” Jordan leans back in her seat, laces her fingers together over her stomach, “Willis was a Catholic from Ireland, and he came over right after the start of the troubles. The only reason I know that I’m Cuban, actually, was because once Willis wanted to go back, was like ‘let’s go to the homeland,’ and my mother said, ‘I’m a Jew from Cuba, I don’t know what homeland you’re talking about.’ I must have been five or six at the time, but I remember it really clearly.” Jordan leans forward and takes a sip of her coffee. “My mom wanted to stay in Gotham, I don’t know why.”

Tim decides to leave that one on the table, which is kind of him. “So you’re half Jewish,” he says instead.

“You know, I’m not an expert, but I’m pretty sure Judaism is an all-or-nothing proposition, Timothy,” she says.

“Sure,” Tim says, then picks up his coffee. “You know it’s good hearing you have a plan for the future?”

“Is that a question?”

Tim puts down the mug without drinking. “No, it’s not. It is good.”

“Obviously don’t tell Bruce about it,” Jordan says.

“I won’t if you tell me more about it,” Tim’s eyes are sparkling over the lip of the mug.

Jordan snorts, but she’s game enough. “You drive a hard bargain. But alright.” So she does.

They spend another 20 minutes with the dregs of their coffee and meal before Jordan pulls out her wallet and slaps down a $50. It’s well more than the meal was worth, but Luisa deserves it for staying open past the 3pm lunch hour. They drive back to the ACME where Tim’s car is parked, a shiny black thing that he must think is low key enough to be driving in this part of town. Hell, maybe for his collection of vehicles it is.

“You’re lucky your car didn’t get boosted,” Jordan says while Tim gets off the bike.

“I woulda been able to find it,” Tim says. He opens the door, but before getting in he turns and says, “You should call them.”

Jordan considers playing obtuse, just to be a bitch, but decides to shake it up with more honesty instead. “Tim, Bruce and I have talked half a dozen times in the last year. One of those times he tried to kill me. The next he told me that my— that Rose had died. We’re not really on speaking terms.”

Tim seems taken aback by that assertion. Maybe it’s the fact that she said Bruce tried to kill her, which she still very much believes he did. Anyone without her pit-induced healing factor, minor though it is, would have died from the beating he gave her after she shot the Penguin, and as far as she knows Bruce still isn’t fully aware of those little super powers she has.

But then, Tim surprises the hell out of her, and asks, “Have you thought about grief counseling?” 

What? “What?”

“After some shit went down in the league, when we lost some people, there was a counselor who came in and talked to some of us. I went. It really helped,” Tim looks at the ground, “I don’t know, it seems like what happened with Rose is still really bothering you. Maybe talking to someone would be, um, helpful.”

Jordan is speechless — where to even start. How is Jordan supposed to tell Tim that she’s not, not  _ ever _ , going to seek therapeutic help because she’s worried if she shakes one single thing loose her whole world will come crashing down around her ears? How is she supposed to communicate that she doesn’t want to know how far down that trauma goes, because there’s a part of her that’s afraid there’s nothing at the bottom and all she is is a glued together amalgamation of all the shit she’s seen? How is she supposed to keep living in this horror show of a world with the things that have happened to her? Murder victims aren’t supposed to come back. Every magic user she’s ever met has told her that she was never supposed to die, but she doesn’t know how she was ever supposed to come back.

And that doesn’t even begin to cover what she and Rose had been. Widows sometimes move on, but she’s not a widow, she’s just a friend. Rose never belonged to her. The most significant relationship she’d had in years boiled down to a couple of fucks and a good friend who she left, bloody and alone, in a warehouse. And that wasn’t even the worst thing she did that day.

Instead of telling Tim any of that, Jordan just kicks the stand on her bike up and says, “I don’t think that’s my speed. I’ll see you around, kid,” before pulling her helmet on.

Tim purses his lips, rolls his eyes, and shakes his head a little as he gets into the car. Jordan doesn’t think she was meant to see him do that.

* * *

Jordan sits on the bridge connecting midtown to uptown on the east side, where she looks over the grey-blue Atlantic ocean and thinks about calling Bruce.

It’s a monumental proposition. Last time they spoke even semi civilly Jordan promised to not come back to Gotham, that the city wasn’t big enough for both of them. That was a promise she had never had any intention of keeping, unlike her adherence to his  _ rules _ , and she thinks he might have known it at the time too, but she doesn’t have any desire to open herself back up to his judgement. Today of all days. And Jordan has spent a lot of time trying to get out from under him. She’s also spent a long time trying to square the girl who lived for his approval, with the one who was willing to blow her whole (extremely sweet) life apart for someone she didn’t know to the exclusion of Bruce, with the fugue state version of herself who did mass murder to make a point (something she still doesn’t really understand about herself but she doesn’t look at to closely because, once more, that way lies madness), with the woman she is now. And of course this is all complicated by the fact that she doesn’t really know the woman she is now.

Goddamn. Life is a horror show.

She tries not to think of herself from Bruce’s perspective too often, because it just sends her down the ‘why didn’t he kill the Joker’ rabbit hole.

Well.

Why the fuck not? Today only comes around once a year.

Imagine your kid gets violently murdered while trying to run away from you by someone who’s whole schtick is that he violently murders people for kicks, so now you know, you  _ know _ , how much losing someone like that tears people apart. And still, the next time you get the chance, because _your_ whole schtick is beating up people who have murder schticks, you don’t put the world out of his misery. You, in fact, specifically keep the world in his misery. Then, that kid comes back, fucked up beyond belief, with her own murder schtick, and sets it up that that fucker is going to die either way, and instead of then putting the world out of his misery or letting your child get her own closure for her own murder, you try to kill her. So she doesn’t kill murder schtick man.

Let it never be said that Jordan is good at putting herself in Bruce’s shoes.

Jordan doesn’t like to think about what happened with the Penguin too much, mostly because it was so close to Rose’s death, but even now she’s worried that her broken collarbone from Bruce’s steel toed boot hadn’t healed quite right. In the back of her mind, there’s still something screaming about the fact that she deserved to be hurt when the Penguin didn’t, that she was run out of town when Ivy still lives in Robinson park, that Harley is still around and terrorizing people when things in Jordan’s neighborhood were getting  _ better _ , for  _ once _ , and Bruce didn’t even bother to  _ check _ if the Penguin hadn’t actually died before nearly caving in her chest cavity, and–

At this point Jordan is at risk of working herself up into a lather and her vision is going green at the edges, so she decides to stop thinking about it. It’s water under the bridge. Or something. There’s a tangible thing to be done — return Bruce’s phone call — and he won’t leave her alone until he gets a response, so she does it.

She’s going to do it.

She rubs at her eyes and sighs.

Okay. Time to call Bruce.

Her phone rings twice before Bruce picks up. He answers quickly, like he’s afraid she’ll disappear if he doesn’t get this out fast enough. “Jordan. This is a surprise.”

Jordan pinches the bridge of her nose. “Hi, Bruce,” she says.

“Why, not that I’m complaining, but what’s the occasion of your call?” Bruce asks, carefully.

“Just… returning yours.”

“What?”

“You called me earlier?”

“Oh, yes.”

“Well, what’s up?” Jordan asks.

“What?” Bruce asks, and really.

“What was the occasion of your call?”

“Oh. I just wanted to talk for a minute,” Bruce says.

“About what?”

“Just… I just wanted to know how you’re doing.”

“I’m fine.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, I’m a member of the idle rich and it’s a beautiful day; I’m golden.”

“Jordan.”

“ _Bruce_ ,” Jordan says. Bruce sighs. Neither of them say anything. Jordan keeps looking at the water, but her shoulders have tensed almost painfully. After another few moments pass, and Jordan presses on the knot in her right shoulder, which works like a release valve on her tension. “I get the sense that you have something specific you want to say to me, and today I would really like it if you could just— say it. I don’t really want to have to beat around the bush for 20 minutes.”

“I’m happy you’re alive,” Bruce says, again over-quick. “I know we haven’t been on the best of terms, but I’m happy that you’re not gone anymore. I’m glad you’re back. Your death,” Bruce takes in a long breath, “your death was one of the great failures of my life, and I’m glad that my failings didn’t, well, I’m glad the cost of my failings has been mitigated.”

“I don’t, and I mean I  _ really _ don’t, want to start a fight, but you do know you didn’t kill me, right?” Jordan says, “Like the people responsible for my– for what happened to me were the Joker, Harley, Sheila, and me. You’re not–  _ I  _ never, blamed you, for that.”

Bruce’s response is automatic. “Just because you don’t blame me doesn’t mean I’m not responsible.”

And this is the problem with talking to Bruce. He’s a stone wall about some things, absolutely unmovable. Time was, Jordan knew how to get around that wall and poke at it from the inside, make it porous or at least malleable. It’s what had made her such a good Robin, for a while. But she’s been on the other side for so long that she’s doesn’t know how to make him understand that him letting go of some of that fucking guilt is something she  _ needs _ without just– huh.

So Jordan, voice deep and serious, comes out and says it. “Bruce. I know that you’re still carrying around a lot of guilt about what happened to me. But you’re not using it at all, and it’s just hurting you. It’s hurting both of us. So I need,” she hears him take a breath in, and he’s always been good with directions, “ _ I _ need for you to just– to try to let some of it go. I live with this all the time. Every day. I– I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to move on from it, or even put it down. But it’s a lot  _ harder _ to carry when you’ve so clearly got all this goddamn guilt. So I need you to try to put some of it down.”

Bruce doesn’t say anything.

Jordan takes the phone away from her ear after some time has passed in silence. He’s still there. “Bruce?” she asks. 

“I’m here.”

“Okay.”

Jordan is trying to put together something to say about his silence, but he beats her to the punch. “I’ll try, Jay.”

Jordan nods for her own benefit, and says, “Okay.”

“Would you like to get lunch with me?” Bruce asks.

“Today?”

“No, but– maybe sometime next week. At that steakhouse you like, on 4th Avenue,” Bruce suggests.

Jordan hasn’t thought about that steakhouse in years. The last time she had been was Bruce’s funeral. “Sure, sure,” she says, “Just– text me, when works for you.”

“I will,” Bruce says. 

“It was– good to hear from you,” Jordan says, and is surprised to find that it’s true.

“Likewise, Jay,” Bruce says, “Don’t be a stranger.”

“Okay,” Jordan says, “I’m going to hang up now. Goodbye.” She hangs up before Bruce has a chance to respond.

With one phone call down Jordan can feel the day starting to get to her, so instead of calling Alfred back she sets an alarm for 7:13pm, knowing that he’ll be in the middle of dinner service and wouldn’t stop for the apocalypse. She can return his call without risking needing to actually talk to him, which for today seems like the best course of action. Alfred’s particular brand of comfort sometimes makes her feel like her skin is going to melt off, and she just can’t handle it right now.

Dick, on the other hand.

The two of them don’t talk very much. Looking at her phone, she sees that the last message in their text thread was a “Thanks.” from Dick after she forwarded a file for him to take a look at — something about a mob expansion, she hadn’t been giving it that much attention.

Still, though, her options at this moment are to call him back or unequivocally win the “biggest asshole” title they’ve been passing back and forth between each other for years.

She splits the difference.

Dick 03/17/2020: Thanks.

Today

Me 15:42: you rang?

Dick 15:44: Yes! Hi.

Me 15:44: what’s up? 

Dick 15:45: Did you listen to my voicemail?

Me 15:45: no i never listen to my messages

Dick 15:46: What is the point of having an answering machine if you don’t listen to the voicemail?

Me 15:46: makes people feel better about me not picking up my phone 

Me 15:46: since i never pick up my phone

Dick 15:47: You‘re intolerable.

Me 15:47: hey u called me

Dick 15:48: Yes I did. How are you?

Me 15:50: u called for smalltalk?

Me 15:51: im fine. wish people would stop asking.

Out loud, Jordan says, “Shit.” She’s aware, at least logically, that Dick isn’t trying to be an asshole, and is in fact just trying to help, and she’s not making it easy on him.

Me 15:52: wanna get a drink 2nite?

Immediately after sending the invitation she regrets it, but—

Dick 15:52: Yes!

Dick 15:52: Do you have a bar we should meet at or…?

—she can’t exactly walk it back without winning the asshole olympics.

Me 15:54: just shitty beer at my place. i don’t really feel like going out atm

Me 15:54: 8pm work?

Dick 15:55: That’s great!

Jordan locks her phone and sighs, looking over the water again. It really has become a beautiful day, and she’s sort of regretting the sweater, even if it is the bare minimum to be warm enough while she’s on her bike. The Atlantic is sparkling, almost blinding, and she thinks of birds. Of seagulls, that can go weeks without setting down when they winter at sea. Of albatross, that glide for hundreds of miles without flapping their wings. Of the north American robin, who started their northern migration a few weeks ago, trading the winter diets of their homes in the south for the rich foods of the north.

There’s a version of Gotham that’s beautiful. Hell, there’s a version of the Bowery, of fucking Crime Alley that’s beautiful, romantic even. She doesn’t live in it, never has, but she’s never really needed things to be beautiful or perfect or even good to love them. There have been many, many ugly things that she’s loved. That she loves. That’s– that’s her problem.

Her thoughts put words to something she never wanted to dwell on, something she wants to tell Bruce, Dick, all of them.  _ You are the most imperfect thing that I have loved, and it hasn’t gone all that well for me _ . Even in her mind the sentiment is just dripping in resentment.

Jordan thinks about a perfect cup of coffee and the feeling of autumn sun between her shoulder blades, and tries to let that resentment go. It’s sticky. It’s not easy. But maybe– maybe she can try.

Before that, though, she needs beer.

* * *

The Red Hood has more than a dozen safe houses all over Gotham and surrounding areas, most of which aren’t more than a hole in the wall with restocks of ammunition, a place to sleep, and emergency medical supplies. A few of them are more decked out, and if Jordan didn’t think picking favorites was bad luck she’d say the one where she has her collection of knives is her favorite (it’s certainly the most used). Still, none of those are home, and most of them have very little of Jordan Todd, whoever the hell that is, in them.

The apartment that actually manages to have some of her indefinable self in it is in Coventry, across the Sprang from anywhere she can realistically call the Red Hood’s territory and well away from any of Bruce’s stomping grounds. The building isn’t far from the U district, close enough that the other tenants are mostly grad students and adjunct professors; that was why she picked it in the first place. As salty as Jordan is about not being able to go to college (not even being able to finish  _ high school _ ) the prospect of being around her peers was enticing, and there were times that she—

Rose had thought the apartment was depressing at an existential level, but even she hadn’t been able to say it was uncomfortable, with the light pink walls and books and photos. And, Jordan had gotten Rose to admit that it was only depressing in theory once the two of them had lived in it for a while. When they were together there Rose had taken over the table in the breakfast nook, and there were days when Jordan drank her coffee while Rose worked on something or other, and Jordan had thought that she could spend every morning like that.

Anyway.

It’s not a big apartment by any means, but it does have a lot of light and a fire escape and a bathtub, which had been her only requirements when she was looking for a place more personal than any of her boltholes. She’s done her best to make it warm, a place she actually wants to be, and it makes the fact that in her quest to keep it separate from her night job she only gets to spend the night there once or twice a week kind of bitter. In any case, everyone knows that when Jordan is talking about her place, that apartment in Coventry is what she’s talking about.

She’s like, 85% sure about that.

She becomes less sure about it when, after scratching the cat’s forehead, she just about literally runs into Stephanie outside the bodega midway between her apartment and Gotham U. She chose this bodega, the Wow Market, specifically because it has beer at a college student budget price. Jordan has a six pack of bud lite lime (just because she was the one to invite Dick doesn’t mean she has to give him good beer), a bag of tortilla chips, and a new box of tampons, and she wishes that she had remembered that it’s a Monday and students usually go to school on Mondays.

It’s not that she makes a point to avoid Stephanie, it’s just that she doesn’t not make a point to avoid Stephanie most of the time.

Stephanie seems just as surprised to see Jordan as Jordan is to see her, and she rocks back on her heels to prevent them from colliding in the entry, and Jordan corrals the two of them out of that doorway so the woman trying to get in behind Stephanie can go.

“Hi,” Stephanie says, “I, uh, wasn’t expecting to see you. You have my sweatshirt!”

Jordan fiddles with her sunglasses, perched on her head, for a second, then says, “I mean. Not on me. But in general, yes.”

“So you’re not here to return it?” Stephanie says, oddly hopeful.

“No, I– was gonna wash it first,” Jordan says, “sorry about taking it, it was just late, and I wanted to get home, and I was just  _ covered _ in goo–“

“It’s fine, I just,” Stephanie says, “what are you doing here?”

“I live like, five blocks that way,” Jordan says.

“Really?”

“Yeah, on Cherry street.”

“Huh.”

“Did you,” Jordan pokes the ground with the toe of her shoe, “did you not know that?”

“Can’t say I did,” Stephanie says ruefully.

“Um. Yeah.”

Stephanie nods towards the six pack. “Bud lite lime?”

“It’s for Dick.”

“Dick likes bud lite lime?”

“I don’t think anyone likes bud lite lime.”

A random passerby says, “I like bud lite lime!”

Completely in unison, Stephanie and Jordan say, “Fuck off!”

Jordan shakes her head. Gothamites, always sticking their noses into other people’s business. Anyway. “He’s coming over to drink it with me,” she explains, “and I got the worst thing I could think of.”

“You… you do realize you’re gonna have to drink it too, right?” Stephanie asks.

“Yeah it was funnier before I gave it literally any thought,” Jordan says, “Anyway, um, I’m probably going to wash your sweatshirt tomorrow, so if you wanna come get it Wednesday that’s fine. I can also drop it off next time I’m downtown, whatever works.”

“You don’t have to wash it,” Stephanie says.

“It didn’t get any of the goo on it,” Jordan says, “but it did get some of the goo  _ smell _ . Trust me, you want it washed.”

“What does the goo smell like?”

“ _ Bad _ .”

Neither of them say anything for a minute.

Stephanie breaks the silence. “Alright, well, this has been—”

“It’s the anniversary.”

“Sorry?”

“Today is,” Jordan says carefully, “the anniversary. Of what happened– to me. It happened today.”

“Oh,” Stephanie says. And maybe she is the better Batgirl, because while Barbara doesn’t seem to get it, Jordan can tell that Stephanie  _ gets it _ . “I’m sorry.”

Jordan scoffs. “You didn’t do it.” 

“Still I’m– sorry it happened to you,” Stephanie says.

“Thanks,” Jordan says, “so anyway, Dick is going to come over and we’re going to drink this shit beer and– I don’t know, talk I guess.”

“Have fu–“

“You should come get your sweatshirt on Thursday, now that I’m thinking about it. If you have classes that day.”

“Okay.”

“I’ll text you the address.”

“I will wait for the text,” Stephanie says, tone a touch placating and a little condescending too.

“Okay. Bye.”

Jordan is a few steps away when Stephanie calls out to her. “Jordan, wait.”

Jordan turns and raises her eyebrows in waiting, but doesn't say anything.

“I hope that tomorrow is better,” Stephanie says.

For a minute Jordan doesn’t know what to say, the two of them standing on the sidewalk, are locked into regarding each other. Then she says, “Thanks, BG.”

Stephanie nods. “I’ll see you around?”

“Yeah, see ya,” Jordan says, and surprisingly finds herself actually wanting it to be true.

Then she turns, and starts walking herself back home.

* * *

Me 17:28: [IMG2820.png]

Me 17:28: robin spotted on walk home

Dick 17:34: Haha yeah! They’re making their way north. Damian and I went bird watching in Robinson Park last week and saw a few.

Me 17:36: [LOCATION SHARED]

Me 17:36: my apartment

Me 17:37: it’s unit 604

Me 17:37: in case u didn’t know where i live

Dick 17:40: Thanks! I don’t think I did know haha.

* * *

Voicemail left at 19:14

_ Hi Alfred, it’s Jordan, returning your call from earlier. I actually have plans this weekend, so I’m not going to be able to make it out there. Sorry, about that. Um, I also just wanted to let you know that I bought some bulbs — dahlias and gladiolus — from the botanical gardens. I know how discerning you are about your plants, so if you want you can go down and pick them yourself, or I can just have them mailed. Let me know either way. Um. Love you. Bye. _

* * *

Dick arrives at 7:55 because he’s rude and clearly hates her. Still, she’s had the tortilla chips in a bowl since 7:40 since she knows what kind of menace Dick is, and she’s ready to pad to her own front door in socked feet when he knocks.

“Do I want to know how you got into the building?” she asks, standing back to let him in.

“Someone was leaving as I was coming in. I guess there’s enough people in this building that they didn’t think it was weird not to recognize me,” Dick says, “That’s a security risk, by the way.”

Jordan sighs. “I’m aware. And take your shoes off, this isn’t a barn.”

Dick dutifully starts in on the laces of his sneakers. They’re good looking shoes, dark brown leather and clearly well taken care of, though Jordan wouldn’t be surprised if he’s had them since the 70s. Jordan has never really been able to pin down Dick’s sense of style, whether he dresses like someone cool, or he dresses like someone who’s trying to look cool, or if he shot the moon with being a try-hard until he actually looked cool again. It’s impossible to tell. Maybe it’s all three.

Dick’s relative coolness is immediately smashed to bits when he says, “I brought beer, if you don’t have any,” and proceeds to raise up a six pack of  _ bud lite lime _ .

It’s not even bottled, it’s in cans. Even Jordan bought the bottled shit.

“Thanks, Dick,” Jordan says, almost choking. Of course.  _ Of course _ . “I actually did also pick up bud lite lime.”

“Great!” Dick says, finally getting his shoes fully off and tucking them away in the bench cubby by the door, “Are you okay, you sound kind of weird.”

It’s because of the fucking bud lite lime. “I’m good, I’m good.”

“Good,” Dick says. And then he does something that Jordan completely expected but also kind of was dreading but also was looking forward to more than she could adequately express; he pulls her in for a hug.

It’s still weird that Dick is shorter than her, and he is significantly shorter than her. She has at least 4 inches and 30 pounds on him. The oddness of it is further compounded by the fact that she’s been back and bigger than him for longer than she was ever smaller, but in her memory he’ll always be her bigger brother, sized to match. Still, with one of his arms around her ribs and another around her shoulders, Jordan feels small and– cared for. In a way she hasn’t in a while.

It takes her a minute, but eventually Jordan gently puts her hands on Dick’s shoulder. With a voice so thick with– something that it honestly kind of surprises her, Jordan says, “I don’t actually know if I’m good.”

“I know, little wing,” Dick says, pulling her closer. Jordan sags a little, and Dick rubs a hand up and down her back.

“Ah,” Jordan says, pulling back, “that’s– a little too much. Right on the edge. Quick, say something sarcastic or I’ll spontaneously combust.”

Dick gives her a look, but he lets her go easily enough. He looks around a little and says, “Hey this place is nice!”

The apartment is nice, and Jordan watches Dick take it in. He seems surprised at the wall color, a very light pink, and how it matches the rich red oriental rug, and the fact that the woods (TV cabinet that separates the living room from the dining room, round coffee table, bookshelves, chair in the corner) all have matching finishes. She has a lot of plants, and photos around, though the really personal ones are in the bedroom. It’s comfortable– she made it that way on purpose.

Still, she doesn’t want to take the compliment. “The surprise in your tone is very flattering,” Jordan says, and ushers him away from the door and into the living room.

“I don’t know, I guess I pictured you living underground,” Dick says, sitting on the couch. It’s an old thing, brown leather that's clearly seen cat claws, and while it’s not much to look at it’s comfortable as all hell. Jordan bought it for five dollars at a yard sale, and she's loved ever since.

“Well,” Jordan says, sitting in the similarly beat up barrel chair next to the couch, “I came  _ back _ to life underground, so I guess you’re not that wrong.”

“Okay,” Dick says, slapping his hands on his thighs, “kitchen through there?”

“Yeah?” Jordan says, watching as he walks into the kitchen, “what are you doing?”

“I’m getting the booze,” he calls back, “Even for you that was maudlin, and if we’re doing maudlin I want a drink. Besides, I want mine to stay refrigerated, lukewarm beer is gross. Do you realize the only thing you have in here is the bud, a box of salad green, three– wait, four kinds of cheese, some leftovers, and a package of Atlantic cod?”

“I have pickles in there!”

“You have,” Dick sloshes something around, presumably the pickles, “two micro-pickles and like three cups of pickle juice!”

“And mayonnaise!”

“A tablespoon of sriracha mayonnaise at most! Which, by the way, does not go with pizza!”

“Why are you judging my refrigerator? I didn’t invite you over to have my kitchen maligned,” Jordan calls back. When she hears another door open she says, “Christ, are you looking in my freezer, too?”

“Yes!” Dick says, “where are your spoons, we’re eating this ice cream!”

“Next to the stove!”

Dick comes back out with the entire six pack in one hand, two spoons and Jordan’s emergency pint of neapolitan ice cream in the other. “Here,” he says, handing her a beer.

“Did you bring a bottle opener? Don’t bother answering, I know you didn’t,” Jordan says, and pulls a pocket knife out. The bottle cap is easy enough to pop off, and then Jordan is faced with an empty bottle of bud lite lime that she has to pretend to like.

“Well, it sure is beer,” she says after taking a drink. Dick gives her an incredulous look. “I don’t drink much,” she explains.

“You strike me as a whiskey person,” Dick says, using his keys to get the bottle cap up. The irony that they’re both too lazy to stand up and walk the 20 feet to the kitchen but will struggle with improper tools is not lost on her.

“That’s what Willis drank,” Jordan says.

Dick cocks his head to the side, inquisitive. “I thought your mom was the addict,” he says.

“Mom was into heroin,” Jordan says, “but Willis drank. Whatever he could get his hands on, really. But, he had a strong preference for whiskey. He was never as bad as she was, I mean, she died of it, but even so, when he was around and he was drinking… things could get bad.”

“Jesus,” Dick says.

“Yeah. I’ve never really been particularly drawn to this particular vice,” Jordan tilts her bottle up, “but today I am willing to give it a shot.”

“Not heroin?” Dick asks.

And the thing is. The thing is. Jordan knows that Dick meant that as a joke, to bring some levity to this already depressing night, but her mom died of it, and Rose didn’t not die of it, and she’s not giving him the out. So she rolls the bottle between her fingers, starts picking off the label, and says, “Nah, heroin is pretty much always cut with something. Even a shipment direct from the lab, there’s almost always gonna be something in there other than the poppy seeds. It’s just, is it gonna be cornstarch or rat poison? There’s no way to know. And that’s what makes it so lethal, you know, you can’t really get a good feel for how much you’re dosing yourself with if the concentration level varies like 75 percentage points. Like if adults want to take their lives into their hands to numb the fucking pain, more power to ‘em, but I don’t trust anything you can get on the street. So. Unless I was really looking to die, no, not heroin.”

Dick blinks.

“You asked,” Jordan says, shrugging.

“I did,” Dick says, “so no schedule-1 narcotics in this household.”

“Nope. Never.”

“Good for you,” Dick says. 

There’s a long pause between the two of them, and Jordan sighs and sinks down further into her chair.

“So,” Dick finally says, “seen any good movies lately?”

What follows is 45 minutes (and two more drinks each) of kind of awkward small talk mostly centering around the one thing they have in common: the family.

“…anyway, after that we had a meeting with the school administration and a social worker and decided that Damian would probably be better served by homeschooling, so that’s what we’ve been doing ever since.”

Jordan picks at the corner of the label of this bottle. It’s surprisingly dry, and isn’t rubbing off as easily as the rest of the ever-growing pile of damp, sticky paper on the coffee table in front of her.

“He’s just such a smart kid,” Dick says, “and he’s having so much trouble with his peers, you know? And Damian has friends, he’s actually a really social kid, but he has so much trouble relating to other kids his own age who aren’t also in the business, and don’t share some of his life experiences, and I’m worried that it’s going to leave him with absolutely no social skills.”

There’s– a lot that Jordan could say to that. There’s a lot she wants to say to it, not the least of which is that everything Dick has just said about Damian could also have applied to her when she was young. What she settles on, in a tone just adjacent to wry, is, “You’re really involved in Damian’s life, huh?”

“I– yeah. I’m involved in Damian’s life. I mean, I was more or less his only present parental figure for a few years–”

“I do remember that period,” Jordan interrupts.

“I’m sure you do,” Dick says ruefully, and Jordan tries not to let that get under her skin, “but yeah, I try to be involved in all of their lives. I make a point of it, now.”

He’s gotta say it. He’s  _ gotta _ say it. Jordan keeps working on the edge of the label with her thumb so she doesn’t have to make eye contact. “Now?” she asks.

“Since– you know, Jordan.”

“Since  _ what _ , Dick?”

Dick lets a short breath out, clearly irritated at being goaded into saying the thing he’s thinking, and says, “Since I messed things up so bad with you that you ran away from home, and died.”

“You were in space.”

“I could have been there for you,” Dick says, and in a sense it’s true but it’s certainly not helpful. “I wanted to prove to myself that I could be there, for Bruce’s kids. That’s why I make a point to be close to Tim and Damian and Cass.”

She looks at him. “Well I guess in terms of object lessons from my death that’s not the worst one,” she says, “It’s not the one I wanted you to learn but I suppose it’s worthwhile anyway. Here’s what I will say about it: dead kids don’t get to define themselves anymore, and it doesn’t matter, because they’re dead. How to remember the dead– that’s for the living. But I’m alive. And the fact that you bothered to be a better brother to the living kids but have never really tried to see things from my perspective and just followed in Bruce’s footsteps by treating me like a rogue instead of family – worse, sometimes – while keeping me as the object lesson both for yourself and for the kids you were helping to raise is pretty cold fucking comfort.

“Like why didn’t I get that brother, Dick? Why did I have to die for you to be that person? And why don’t I deserve to have the person who cares about his family enough to actually treat them well?”

“You did, little wing, that’s the point, I messed up so much when you were Robin–“

“I’m not–“ Jordan thunks down her bottle, and leans forward, elbows on knees, “I’m not talking about when I was Robin. I’m talking about when I came back.

“I came back wrong. Like, how I did the actions I did was– wrong. I know that, I admit it. But I also wasn’t– I wasn’t  _ okay _ , Dick, I wasn’t doing well, with any of it, and you,” Jordan scoffs, “you locked me up next door to the person who  _ murdered me _ and threw away the key.”

Jordan sits back, takes another pull off the beer. “If it wasn’t for Tim, I’d still be in there. I would have died in there.”

Dick doesn’t say anything, which is good, because Jordan isn’t done.

“You know I can’t hear laughter, anymore? Sometimes when I hear people laughing I just– I’m right back there. In that warehouse, in that cell. It’s awful, it’s fucking unbearable, and so much of the time I’m a ghost in my own life. I– barely exist. I’m several lifetimes worth of trauma strung together with self deprecating humor and murder, and I’m not doing the murder anymore,” Jordan barks out one laugh, without humor. She looks at one of the plants on the windowsill and notices that her vision is going green again – twice in one day, that’s not good – so she gets up. “I’m gonna, just– gimme a minute.”

Jordan escapes out of the living room and into her bedroom, immediately ducking under the window and onto the fire escape. Her cigarettes and a lighter are already out there, waiting when she needs them. She lights up with shaky hands. Making sure to keep the cigarette outside, she leans back into the bedroom and pulls the turtle colorblind test card off the dresser, but doesn’t look at it just yet.

At some point she’s going to have to tell Dick that, leaving aside what she needed, he did probably give her what she deserved. On balance. Or she could not tell him, and have him wallow in self loathing for longer. But there’s no use in them both wallowing in self loathing.

The night is clearer than the day was, but Jordan still can’t see any stars.

Perhaps sensing that this is a vulnerable moment, Dick shows up in her doorway, and moves closer to her. He gingerly sits on her windowsill, body still mostly inside the building, but doesn’t say anything for a long time.

“This is a nice place,” Dick says. Jordan’s cigarette is mostly gone.

“Thanks,” she says.

“Is it expensive? I have no idea how much things cost,” Dick says.

“It’s not untenable.”

“Fair enough. And you could afford it, I mean, you are a drug lord,” Dick notes.

“Not– presently,” Jordan corrects, pulling her knees up in front of herself and wrapping an arm around them, “or at least, not as much as I used to be. I’ve still got a few guys on payroll, but that’s just to keep an ear to the ground. Other than that I’ve more or less divested myself of Gotham’s drug trade.”

“Huh.”

Jordan says, “These days most of that money is in community outreach and wet shelters and needle exchanges. And, I mean, I saved enough to live on, but putting it back into Gotham was always the plan.”

“Really?” Dick sounds kind, and genuinely interested, and Jordan keeps her eyes closed.

Jordan nods. “Job training, too. Gotta get people working in this hellhole of a world.”

“Well, look at you, being all noble,” Dick says, and goddamn, he might actually mean it.

Still, though. “It’s not nobility. It’s– what I wish had been available, when I was younger. Just trying to make sure less kids end up like me.”

“Well, Jay,” Dick says, leaning forward, and fuck, he might actually  _ mean _ it, “murder aside, I like how you ended up.”

Jordan finishes her cigarette, stamping out the butt on the cold metal of the fire escape and flicking it off into the alley below. “At what cost, you know?” she finally says. Jordan thunks her head against the wrought iron bars behind her, taking deep breaths.

Dick moves closer, takes her free hand in both of his. He rubs over the back of her hand with his thumb. Jordan eventually opens her eyes.

“How am I supposed to live like this, Dick?” she asks, not really expecting an answer.

“I don’t know,” he admits. After a long time, he says“Maybe try letting people help.”

“That’s really hard,” she says, almost a whisper. She closes her eyes again, trying not to cry.

“I know,” Dick says. “I know, little wing, I know.”

“I miss her.”

“Who?”

“Rose,” Jordan says, “and my mom. And Kori, and Artemis. Fuck, I miss  _ myself _ . But mostly Rose. I miss Rose.”

Dick sighs. “I don’t think she’d want you to wallow.”

“I _know_ she wouldn’t want me to wallow. But she’s dead now, and,” Jordan opens her eyes, looks straight at Dick, “how to remember the dead is for the living.”

Dick quietly says, “Yeah.”

Jordan sniffs a little and looks at the card she brought outside; the turtle is visible, though a little faint. It’s workable. It’ll get better.

“What’s that?” Dick asks.

Jordan turns it toward him. “Colorblind test,” she says, “It’s cause of the pit. I can tell when it’s wearing off because I can see the turtle again. I’m lucky, not many people have a visual cue when their PTSD is wearing off.”

And maybe it’s just the day, but something about that has Jordan laughing. It’s silent laughter – hearing her own laughs is just gonna set her off – but it’s so fucking funny. The culmination of all of her trauma is that she can predict when she’s going to go crazy, and when she’s done.

Soon enough, the laughter turns to tears. It’s doubly funny that a joke is what finally made Jordan cry today. Jordan is leaning her head forward onto her knees and breathing shallowly, and she can feel her cheeks getting hot, and the night air cooling the tracks of her tears.

“I’ve got you,” Dick says, pulling her into him. Her head ends up somewhere just under his ribs, but he’s warm and it’s nice to be held. He rubs her back. “I’ve got you, Jordan. It’s okay.”

“It’s not okay!” she says, voice muffled in Dick’s shirt.

“I know,” Dick says. “But one day it might be.”

And the two of them sit like that, together, for a long time.

* * *

Jordan isn’t really paying attention to the time when they go back inside, but they sit next to each other on the couch and Dick puts something comforting on the television and they eat the mostly melted ice cream. Every so often Dick touches her; a hand on the shoulder, brushing over her hair, rubbing her back. It’s just on the edge of what would normally make her hackles raise, but tonight it’s comforting. Jordan is aware that she acts like a scared dog most of the time, but for now she just lets the night wash over her. She can be tense and cagey tomorrow. For now she’s too tired.

The third time Netflix asks if they’re still watching, Jordan glances at the time.

“Hey,” she says.

Dick looks up at her. She points to the clock on the DVD player: 12:07.

“It’s tomorrow.”

New day.

**Author's Note:**

> [my tumblr](passiveaggressivegummybear.tumblr.com)  
> 
> 
> When I started writing this I was like "this is going to be... about 12,500 words" and then it was and I was like "*pikachu meme.png*"
> 
> This is part of a story that I've been planning in my head for a long time that's more or less the epic romance of Rose Harper and Jordan Todd, and does eventually include a fix-it. I may one day write that. Let me know in the comments if it's something anyone is interested in reading.
> 
> comments feed the soul


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